Close to Something Real
by Elizabeth Jay
Summary: Title taken from "Somewhere I Belong" by Linkin Park. Temporarily without their powers, the twins find themselves stuck waiting in the Emergency Room.


If that snippy woman with a bad perm gave them the evil eye one more time, Billy would not be held responsible for his actions.

Tommy's shoulders shook harder as if he could pick up on his twin's mood, and Billy gathered up his brother so he could pull Tommy closer. His twin was a third of the way in his lap already, trying desperately to hide his face in Billy's shoulder.

Tommy was mortified enough by the uncontrollable tears without the judgment of total strangers. It was an emergency room, for goodness sake—people came here for help.

Billy began to mutter quietly enough that only Tommy could hear him. _"Iwantherhairtoturngreen."_ No such luck, considering the twins had been rendered temporarily powerless by the latest of Doom's gadgets earlier in the evening. _"Iwantherhairtoturngreenandfa llout."_

That earned a snort through the tears, and Tommy blew his nose on Billy's hoodie. Billy wrapped his borrowed coat more firmly around his brother's shoulders because Tommy was shaking like a leaf even as the crying jags came and went. It was like trying to hold onto Tommy when he started to vibrate so fast he'd vanish . . . but without the threat of exploding.

Shock and speedsters were never a good combination.

"Gonna puke again," Tommy rasped into Billy's neck, and shifting free just enough to lean over the bucket at their feet. Everyone else in the emergency room winced, but there wasn't anything left in Tommy's system to throw up. Mostly water, spittle, and the phlegmy result of crying on and off for over an hour.

Billy rubbed his brother's neck with the fingertips of his bad hand so that he could work the cap off the water bottle that Kate had given them earlier. She had offered to come with them, but Tommy had vetoed that idea vehemently. That left Billy to handle the ER run since Teddy was on a space-mission with Cap.

That simple task was much harder than it seemed without magic to speed up the whole process of getting off the suits and changing into street clothes, catching a bus, and settling into the Emergency Room—all without aggravating Tommy's mangled hand or head injury.

Uncontrollable crying was a little known symptom of a concussion, and the credit goes to Iron Man for recognizing that fact before Billy flipped out entirely over his literally-sobbing twin.

"C'mon, bro," he coaxed, waving the water bottle in Tommy's line of vision. They were not dealing with dehydration on top of anything else. His brother cursed, but Billy was persistent and Tommy eventually swallowed a few mouthfuls of water before the tears return.

Billy scowled at their audience and hauled Tommy into his lap again. Flipping up the collar of Teddy's jacket provided a few more inches of shielding between Tommy and the rest of the world, and Billy would take what he could get.

"I'm s'posed to be older," Tommy forced out.

"You be older," Billy granted graciously. "It doesn't make you any bigger." Billy's always been thin, but Tommy's downright scrawny no matter what he eats. The dark-haired twin briefly considered that now might be the time to fatten Tommy up considering the currently human metabolism . . . once Tommy can keep it down, of course.

"Jerk," Tommy informed him unsteadily, squirming until they were sitting side by side in the same cheap metal chair. "Stop babying me."

Billy disregarded that entirely, keeping an arm around Tommy's shoulders and fiddling with the cap to the water bottle. "It's like half the city decided to come here tonight," he huffed. "Should have gone to the clinic instead."

"They're supposed . . . to let the pregnant women and major bleeders . . . go first, Kaplan," Tommy scolded, still trying to ignore the hitches in his voice. "That's the way . . . it works."

"Doom's rampage only made it twelve blocks," Billy grumbled. "How many pregnant women could he have scared into early labor in twelve blocks?"

"We're up to three," Tommy snorted. There's a wet patch on Billy's shoulder that is probably eighty percent tears and twenty percent mucus, but it's okay. He'll make Tommy do the laundry when they get home and everything goes back to normal. "How's the shoulder?" Tommy sniffed this time, rubbing at his eyes with his left fist.

"Fine," Billy shrugged, rolling it carefully. "It's a little sore, but not like before." Not like the way it had burned before Wolverine put it back in place, using Billy's distraction with Tommy for the element of surprise. "How's the hand?"

Tommy grimaced, carefully withdrawing the limb from the safety of the oversized jacket and displaying the broken fingers and the odd new angle of his wrist. "Been better," he quipped. There's a sudden gasp from the bad-perm lady, and Billy shoots a triumphant-if-venomous glare over Tommy's head.

Because, no, his brother was not crying over nothing right now, was he? His twin was in honest pain, and still embarrassed as all get out by the drama. The hand wasn't even what bothered Tommy—he'd taken worse although Billy was usually quick to heal what super-metabolism didn't—it's the stupid concussion that came from having super speed sapped mid-run and an inconvenient brick wall in one's path.

Billy tried not to think about the way Tommy slammed into the wall, his dominant hand trying to break the force and giving under the pressure instead. He didn't want to relive the crack of Tommy's head off the wall, and the way his twin's battered body flew back from the unforgiving surface. Under the civvies were an entire side's worth of rapidly forming bruises, but Tommy's interest in his injuries was detached, almost clinical under the onslaught of uncontrollable tears and the occasional bout of puking.

Billy exhaled slowly, putting the woman out of his head and tentatively cradling Tommy's hand in his. "It looks like you lost a battle with a blender," he tried for the same objectivity, even if it fell flat.

Tommy snorted, tucking the offending limb back against his chest and burrowing into the oversized jacket more effectively. "We're never going to live this down, are we?" he sighed heavily.

Billy shook his head. Doom had incapacitated all three mutants neatly, keeping Iron Man occupied with the tech, but he had made one crucial error. Doom had not taken into account the dark-haired woman who promptly pressed her advantage by clocking him upside the head with her secondary bow—Stark technology for the win.

As Kate put it, "You don't need superpowers to be a superhero."

Tommy shook his head, winced, and made a frustrated noise as he let his head fall back against Billy's shoulder. "This never happened, Kaplan," he warned, slouching against Billy's side again. His eyes were red from all the crying and Tommy sounded worn out for once instead of hyperactive.

So Billy made soft agreeable noises as his twin made himself comfortable. He ran his fingers through Tommy's hair soothingly and gave up on ever getting Teddy's jacket back.

Because he was an awesome brother, Billy even waited until Tommy's breathing started to even out with only the occasional rattle. And once he was absolutely certain that Tommy was asleep . . . Billy ignored the twinge of his shoulder as he dug out his cellphone to snap a few photos.

For posterity. And blackmail.


End file.
